Being Intimate with . . . Yourself!

A pearl goes up for auction. No one has enough,
so the pearl buys itself.

Rumi

Love exists in itself, not relying on owning or being owned. Like the pearl, love can only buy itself, because love is not a matter of currency or exchange. No one has enough to buy it, but everyone has enough to cultivate it. Metta [loving kindness] reunites us with what it means to be alive and unbound.

Researchers once gave a plant to every resident of a nursing home. Half of these elderly people were told that the plants were theirs to care for — that they had to pay close attention to their plants’ needs for water and sunlight, and should respond carefully to those needs. The other half of the residents were told that the plants were theirs to enjoy but that they did not have to take any responsibility for them; the nursing staff would care for the plants. At the end of a year, the researchers compared the two groups of elders. The residents who had been asked to care for their plants were living considerably longer than the norm, were much healthier, and were more oriented toward, and connected to their world. The other residents, those who had plants but did not have to stay responsive to them, simply reflected the norms for people their age in longevity, health, alertness, and engagement with the world. 

This study suggests, among other things, the enlivening power of connection, of love, of intimacy. This is the effect that metta can have on our lives. But when I hear about the study, I also reflected on how often we regard intimacy as a force between ourselves and something outside ourselves — another person, a pet, or even a plant — and how rarely we consider the force of being intimate WITH OURSELVES, with our own inner experience. How rarely do we lay claim to our own lives and feel connected to ourselves!

Sharon Salzberg
from Loving-Kindness; the Revolutionary Art of Happiness